The Wabi-Sabi Way
2020A beginner's guide to the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi — imperfection, impermanence, and contentment — and what it offers anyone worn down by busyness and self-regard.
Mike Sturm
I write about productivity, philosophy, and the ordinary work of living well. Everything I've published is collected here.
The Today System
A personal productivity system that fits on a 3 × 5 index card. Simple enough to keep up for years, flexible enough to survive a bad week.
Writing
377 essays, 2015–2023- Productivity & Systems 149 Building a system you'll actually keep. Task management, planning, and why most methods fall apart.
- Thinking & Philosophy 54 Asking better questions, catching your own biases, and what old philosophy still gets right.
- Writing & Creativity 49 Reading with intent, writing without waiting for inspiration, and finishing things.
- Self & Growth 34 Change that lasts, failure that teaches, and being decent to yourself while you work at it.
- Work & Career 32 Meaningful work, bad management, burnout, and the case against workâlife balance.
- Attention & Focus 26 Deep work, distraction, and practical mindfulness for people who find meditation tedious.
- People & Relationships 20 Listening properly, arguing well, and paying attention to the people in front of you.
- Miscellany 13 Everything that refused to sit in a category.
Books
Be, Think, Do
2019Essays on personal development, sorted into the three things all of it comes down to: how you meet the world, how you understand it, and what you actually do.
Elsewhere
- Woolgathering newsletter A weekly letter connecting ideas from across the intellectual landscape, for the intellectually promiscuous.
- Writing for Workflowy 13 posts Guest essays on prioritization, note-taking, deep work, and running a system inside an outliner.
- GTD in Google Sheets template A free spreadsheet that runs a full Getting Things Done setup, with nothing else to install.